Nisar Bazmi
Born	Syed Nisar Ahmed (1924-12-01)1 December 1924 Jalgaon, Khandesh, Maharashtra, British India
Died	22 March 2007(2007-03-22) (aged 83) Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
Occupations	Composer & music director of films
Years active	1944 – 2007
Awards	Pride of Performance Award by the President of Pakistan in 1994 Won 5 Nigar Awards during his long career

Nisar Bazmi (1 December 1924 – 22 March 2007) was a composer and music director of Indian and Pakistan film industry.^[1][2]

Nisar Bazmi was known as one of the accomplished musicians of South Asia. He also introduced new singers like Alamgir and Mehnaz Begum. The duo of composers Laxmikant–Pyarelal were musicians with Bazmi in India before the partition. Bazmi is primarily remembered for his compositions in the voice of playback singer Ahmed Rushdi.^[3]

Early life and career

Syed Nisar Ahmed, was the son of Syed Qudrat Ali. He was born in 1924 in Jalgaon in Khandesh area of Maharashtra state, India.^[2] He did not belong to an artistic family. In fact, his family was extremely poor. He had to join Yasin Khan's Qawwali Group, a noted Qawwal in Mumbai at that time, as 'humnawa' (companion) at age 11.^[4]

He possessed no prior musical background. In the late 1930s, a prominent Indian musician of Bombay, Khan Saheb Aman Ali Khan was convinced by Nisar Bazmi's musical interest and taught him music for four years.^[4] Equipped with artistic know-how, young Nisar Bazmi, who was just 13 at the time, quickly mastered the various ragas and the musical instruments. In 1939, the All India Radio hired him as an artist.^[2][3] In 1944, he composed some songs for a drama, "Nadir Shah Durrani", which was broadcast from the Bombay Radio Station. The songs were sung by Rafiq Ghaznavi and Amirbai Karnataki. After this initial success, Nisar Bazmi "started earning 50 rupees a month - a respectable salary in those days."^[4][3]

Music and popular film songs of Nisar Bazmi

• "Mohabbat Mein Tere Sar Ki Qasam Aisa Bhi Hota Hai" was his first big hit film song in Pakistan.

Awards and recognition

• Pride of Performance Award in 1994 by the President of Pakistan^[4]
• Nigar Award - Nisar Bazmi won 'Best Music Director' award five times for different films^[4][3]

Death and legacy

Nisar Bazmi died on 22 March 2007 in Karachi and was buried the next day near his residence in North Karachi.^[6][3][2]

A major Pakistani English-language newspaper commented after his death, "In the death of Nisar Bazmi, students of music in Pakistan have lost an opportunity to benefit from the experience of a virtuoso who scored 140 films in all."^[4]

"Nisar Bazmi was a thorough professional and a man of rare imagination. He used to study the storyline and the setting of a film before composing the music for a song."^[4]

References

External links

• Nisar Bazmi at IMDb
• Nisar Bazmi Filmography on Complete Index To World Film (CITWF) website - Archived
• https://www.dawn.com/news/1620128